Posts Tagged ‘Calvary Temple’

Around Camberwell New Road – 1989

Wednesday, June 7th, 2023

My walk on Friday 5th May 1989 continued. This is the second post on the walk which began with Naked Ladies, 3 Doors & A New Walk.

Houses, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-64
Houses, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-64

These houses are 137-141 Camberwell New Road and seem fairly typical of the houses along the road, though unlike many of the others these appear not to be listed. I was interested in particulr at the link between 137 and 139, both with the archway and the butress above. I wondered if the terrace at right was a later replacement for an earlier house here, rather more like the house at left.

Pub, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-66
Pub, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-66

A dog sits at the entrance of the Taylor Walker pub on Camberwell New Road, with a small plaque proudly noting the brewery was established in London in 1730. They began in Stepney as Salmon and Hare, and only added John Taylor in 1796, becoming Taylor Walker when Isaac Walker became a partner in 1816. In 1823 they moved from Stepney to the Barley Mow Brewer in Limehouse. They were taken over in 1959 by Ind Coope who closed the brewery, continuing to brew beer under their name at Burton until the 1990s, but some London pubs continued to use the brand. The brand name was revived by another company for some pubs for a few years this century but has not gone.

I’m not absolutely sure which pub this was but it was probably the Skinners Arms, now known as The Kennington, on the corner with Foxley Rd. It closed around 2004, reopening as the Black Sheep Bar for a few years before getting its new name around 2012. Someone must remember the “Chute In Saturday Nights With Big Ray” and “Music Mirth & Melody” with “Max & Tom”, if only with dread.

Shop, Wyndham Rd, Farmers Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-53
Shop, Wyndham Rd, Farmers Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-53

Fineservice TV & Video Repairs is now a shop and post office, but it still has a reccognisble frontage with the two heads on Farmers Road with a matching pair at the other end of its frontage on Wyndham Road.

Flats, Grenfell House, Comber Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-55
Flats, Grenfell House, Comber Grove, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-55

I think I walked on up Wyndham Road but took no pictures until I turned down Comber Grove and made this image of the stone ornament in front of Grenfell House, one of several large blocks of solid 1930s London County Council flats in the estate. This stone ball is no longer in the grass but has, like the flats, gone up in the world, and there are now of pair of them on solid brick columns each side of the gateway from the street.

Calvary Temple United Church, Councillor St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-44
Calvary Temple United Church, Councillor St, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-44

I walked back onto Camberwell New Road and couldn’t resits taking a few more pictures of Calvary Temple, including some slightly closer images of its frontage (not yet digitised) and a repeat of my earlier viewpoint, before making this view which concentrates on the church without the inclusion of a tower block behind it.

Shops, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-45
Shops, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-45

This whole block from 227-253 Camberwell New Road is Grade II listed as “14 houses, now mostly commercial premises. Early to mid C19 with several later C19 shop fronts of intrinsic interest.”

I’m not sure my photograph shows that intrinsic interest, but the lettering and clutter on the pavements certainly interested me.

Clifton Cottage, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-46
Clifton Cottage, Camberwell New Rd, Camberwell, Southwark, 1989 89-5b-46

Clifton Cottage at 189 Camberwell New Rd conveniently announces it was built in 1833 at the time of the earliest developments on the road which was created under the 1818 Turnpike Act. It is Grade II listed – and was for some time by mistake listed twice. Possibly the confusion arose as from the annoying failure of listings always to include the full street address, or perhaps because the boundary between the two boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark runs down the middle of the road here. I’ve tried hard here to put my pictures into the correct boroughs, but I know I’ve not always got it right everywhere in London.

My walk on Friday 5th May 1989 continued and there will be more in later posts.


Flats, School, College, Houses, Temple, Shop

Monday, June 5th, 2023

Flats, School, College, Houses, Temple, Shop: The final post on my walk on Sunday 9th April 1989. The previous post was Cold Harbour & Myatt’s Fields.

Houses, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-44
Flats, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-44

From Longfield Hall I wandered up Knatchbull Road to Cormont Road, which runs halfway around Myatt’s Fields Park on its southwest and northwest sides. I took half a dozen pictures which I haven’t digitised before coming to this on the corner of Brief Street which I think was built as flats. Almost all the buildings in the area are fine examples of late Victorian housing, largely in the Queen Anne style but there is perhaps a slightly overpowering amount of red brick directly onto the streets.

Houses, Brief St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-45
Flats, Brief St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-45

Another finely designed large block of flats a few yards down Brief Street, Burton House, its hedges a few years ago more tidily trimmed but now again reverting to wild. On the opposite side of the street is a short terrace of two storey houses with brief front gardens and Brief Street is appropriately short – a little under a hundred yards in length.

School, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-34
School, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-34

According to Lambeth’s 2018 Character Appraisal for the Minet Conservation Area, “Kennington Boys’ High School (latterly known as Charles Edward Brooke School), Cormont Road opened in 1897.” This was a LCC board school and the Grade II listing states that this building dates from 1912, architect T J Bailey. It is listed on Historic England’s Heritage At Risk Register.

Confusingly – and I hope I have got this right – the school renamed itself Saint Gabriel’s College when it became co-educational as a Specialist Arts and Music College in 2012, and then moved out to Langton Road a few years later.

Myatts House, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-35
Myatts House, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-35

Again from the Lambeth appraisal, “The former St. Gabriel’s College on Cormont Road opened in 1899 as a training college for Anglican schoolmistresses, the vision of Charles Edward Brooke, a senior curate of nearby St. John the Divine church; the attached chapel was added in 1903.” The style is described as “vaguely Art Nouveau“. In 1989 it was Myatts House, run by the ATC Group of Training Companies and offering courses in Accountancy, Finance, Management and I think Computers, though the final word on the sign is hard to read. Grade II listed.

The building was requisitioned in the First World War, becoming part of the 1st London General Hospital, and was where Vera Brittain was first stationed. Later it became a LCC rest Home. It is now residential, converted to expensive flats as St Gabriel’s Manor.

Calais Gate, Mansions, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-36
Flats, Cormont Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-36

This is Calais Gate, also Grade II listed and said in the listing to date from the early 20th Century, though the Myatt’s Park history site dates that these large mansion blocks as c. 1895.

Perched on top of the fine stepped gable is a terracotta cat, one of a number of cats on buildings on the Minet estate, though most are rather less prominent. The whole estate was developed by the Minet family who were of French Huguenot origin, and their name is an affectionate or childish French term for a cat, (minette if the cat happens to be female.)

Houses, Calais St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-22
Houses, Calais St, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-22

Substantial houses in Calais St facing the park on the north-east side. I wondered when I took this on the significance of the gateway at left with the cross above, but am no wiser now. Hard to make out from this picture but those are cats heads above the doorway.

Houses, Flodden Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-24
Houses, Flodden Rd, Myatts Fields, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-24

Fine railings and decorative elements on these houses at 22 and 24 Flodden Road make them stand out and the absence of cats perhaps suggests these large semidetached Queen Anne style houses were not a part of the Minet development. Instead there are leaves and floral motifs and human heads.

Flodden was the site of a battle in 1513 in Northumberland, close to the border with Scotland when the English Army soundly defeated the army of King James IV of Scotland. England were engaged in a war with France and the Scottish invasion was in support of the ‘Auld Alliance’ they had made with France in 1295.

Calvary Temple, Councillor St, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-11
Calvary Temple, Councillor St, Camberwell, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-11

It was time for me to leave the area, and I walked up Flodden Road to Camberwell New Road to get a bus, coming out almost immediately opposite Calvary Temple of the United Pentecostal Church a few yards to the north of the road in Councillor St.

The church incorporates a memorial stone “laid by William Appleton Esq (Sutton), June 2nd !890″ with the text “Hitherto Hath the Lord Helped Us” (1 Samuel 7:12), naming George Baines Architect and H L Holloway Builder. The church, then Clarendon Chapel, opened as a Baptist church in March 1891, replacing an earlier ‘tin tabernacle’ which had burnt down in 1889. Clarendon Street became Councillor Street some time before 1912 and the church was renamed Camberwell New Road Church, continuing in use for Baptist worship until the 1950s.

It narrowly escaped demolition in 1959 when it was saved by Caribbean immigrants who were looking for a building for their Pentecostal worship and they held their first service there in March 1959. They kept and restored the churches original late Victorian fittings and it remains in use.

Then and now it makes a dramatic composition with the tower block behind, Laird House on Redcar St, one of five 22-storey 210ft blocks on the 1966 LCC Wyndham & Comber Estates.

New Road Bargains, Camberwell New Road, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-12
New Road Bargains, Camberwell New Road, Lambeth, 1989 89-4j-12

There are few if any shops in Myatt’s Fields but several parades within walking distance including on Camberwell New Road where at 243 was New Road Bargains with a small chair fixed above its door and a wonderfully packed window of assorted items. For some years this has been Camberwell Daily, now with a shop front that offers GROCERIES | FRUIT & VEG | OFF LICENCE | NEWS & MAGS.

I might have photographed other shops in the row, but my bus came and I got on it to begin my journey home.

This was the end of my walk on on Sunday 9th April 1989. The posts on it begin at Peckham and East Dulwich 1989.